Barry Soper: Steven Joyce's hissy fit not surprising

It comes as no surprise that Steven Joyce threw a hissy fit, throwing his toys out of the National Party cot and refusing to play with them anymore.

His new boss Simon Bridges had told him he wasn't getting his beloved finance role and that was the one and only toy that he saw as his security blanket.

Bridges told him the role was going to Amy Adams and if his enthusiasm was anything like he exhibited about his choice you can't blame Joyce for throwing a tantrum.

Quite simply Amy is the best, Bridges extolled to journos.

Straight up, he said, Amy would have been his "choice as Finance spokesman for the National Party whether or not she was a contestant in the leadership contest."

Yeah but you can't help thinking there was a bit of I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine going on if you listen to Adams who told us during the contest there'd be no deals.

She now says they spoke a lot during the fortnight of campaigning and they both made it clear that whoever of them won, the other person would have a significant role, and there's nothing more significant that the finance job.

So the writing was on the wall for Joyce who never stood a bolters show of taking out the top job himself.

The finance announcement in advance of next week's shadow Cabinet reshuffle gave Adams the platform to extol the virtues of the last Government, how they've left the Labour-led lot a bed of roses that'll soon wither and die.

Like a cracked record she mentioned debt and how bad it is for the economy, moaning about how it's now going to be ratcheted up by the clueless coalition Cabinet.

She seems to have forgotten what her predecessors, who she deified, inherited when they came to power in 2008.

The debt was at just five and a half percent of what the country was worth, or GDP, down from 23 percent, and they grew it to around 30 percent, at one point borrowing $380 million a week.

Okay so they had the global financial crisis to cope with and the earthquakes but they also inherited the China free trade deal, signed a month before they came to office. Slashing debt didn't stop the Clark Labour Government breathing life into the ACC corpse and setting up the Cullen fund, now worth around $40 billion without contributions from National.

Perhaps rather than harping on about the balance sheet, Adams should focus her attention on a more balanced society.